“After all, we don’t want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief—we’re not oblivious to his sly ways!”—2 Corinthians 2:11, Message
One day this week, I stopped walking past the mess that kept saying “it can wait until another day when I have more time and nothing better to do.” With a bucket of cleaner, a long-handled brush, a ladder and a hose, the years of buildup of mildew on the north side of the house and garage disappeared faster and easier than my mind kept telling me it would.
On another day, I stopped digging in my heels in irritation over someone else’s last minute plans that were tossed in my lap that kept singing, “It’s all about you, and this is a total inconvenience and I hate it and so I’m going to grumble on the inside about it until I feel better.” Which, of course, you never do. And so taking the opposite approach of honoring and serving, something strange happened—there was no inconvenience, the day zoomed by fruitfully, and I felt better than my mind could have imagined.
And then yesterday, determined to keep my running schedule on track in spite of pouring rain, I stopped the urge to turn back after the first quarter-mile, already soaked to the bone and miserable and hearing an increasingly louder voice, “Just give up already!” One step in front of the other. And then again, and again, and again until I no longer felt the carwash-like downpour and completed a 5K in a mind-blowing fastest time in weeks.
It seemed like a bunch of nice little personal achievements. Which they were. Until you also realized that all those voices of negativity—“it can wait,” “it’s all about you,” “give up”—were simply typical “sly ways” of the adversary to render your life and witness ineffective, and at the same time, the Holy Spirit may have been working in ways you couldn’t have imagined at the time….
“…be transformed and progressively changed as you mature spiritually by the renewing of your mind—focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes—so that you may prove for yourselves what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect in His plan and purpose for you.”—Romans 12:2, Amplified
...We can get locked into the idea that renewing our mind is all about fighting to absorb scripture and Truth into your skin day by day. That’s definitely a big part of it. But just as important in the battle against giving the adversary an opening to cause mischief in our lives is to fight for the right attitude, to “take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.” (Ephesians 4:23, Message)
Even and especially in the seemingly routine things of life.
“We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. Our attitude is everything.”—Chuck Swindoll
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